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lovers of wisdom and to share the Hindu Dharma with others on the
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At
which stage does the chanting occur automatically?

1. Methods of
chanting - According to the organ

·A. The body: Writing down The Lord’s Name. The
advantage of this is that chanting occurs through all the three media - the
hands, eyes, and the mind. When the notebooks on which The Lord’s Name is
written are kept in the house, it helps both to purify the house and to
maintain its purity.

Initially: when
reading or
doing official
work, that is
when doing
important
mental tasks.Advanced:
During
conversation.
Once this is
possible,
chanting
occurs even
in sleep.

Absent
since
the one
chanting and
the Name
chanted blend
into one.

4.
Efforts

Tremendous
efforts are
necessary (one
is unable to
continue
chanting without
a tool)*

Not
required [
chanting occurs
automatically at
its own pace.
This itself is
spontaneous
chanting
(ajapajapa).]

Absent.
Spontaneous
chanting
(ajapajapa)
continues.

(Blending
of
the Name
and the one
chanting it).

5.
Duration for
which it occurs
during the day.

Few
minutes

Few
hours

Continuous

(Blending
of
the Name
and the one
chanting it).

6.
Speech

As
usual

As
much as
required

Only
related to
Spirituality

--

7.
The bodies
concerned

The
physical
body and the
conscious mind

The
subtle and
causal bodies

The
supra-
causal body

(Blending
of
the Name
and the one
chanting it).

8.
The site in the
body

Tongue

Throat

Muladhar toManipurchakra

Navel
(The
seat of the
embodied soul

9.
The spiritual
level (%) at
which chanting
occurs

35-50

50-70

70-99

(Blending
of
the Name
and the one
chanting it).

10.
The actions

Average

There
is a
desire to do
only good
deeds

Good
deeds
occur automa-
tically. There
is detachment
inspite of
living in society

Beyond
action
(karma) and
non-action
(akarma)

11.
Who does the
chanting? Who
blends with the
Name?

The
conscious
mind
[contemplation
(manan)]

The subconsc-
ious mind
[concentration
(chintan)]

Initially: The
intellectLater:
The
embodied
soul (jiva)

The
ego
(Blending of
the Name
and the one
chanting it).

12.
Nature of the
Name

Word
consisting
of letters along
with the meaning
(manifest form
of the word)

Initially: Word
devoid of
meaning.Advanced:
Sound (unma-
nifest form of
words) Present
at the creation
of the universe

In the form
of
meaning or
Bliss or eightsattvik
emotions
(ashtasattvikbhav) genera-
ted from
meaning. It is
in the form of
a wave.

In
the form of
fundamental
meaning, that
is serenity
(shanti)

13.
The super-
conscious state

Initially: AbsentAdvanced:Savitarka

Savichar

Sanand andSasmit

Nirbij

14.
In which state
does chanting
occur?

Waking

Waking
and
dream

Waking,
dream and
deep sleep [
this is also
called the sup-
erconscious
state of the
Name (Nam-samadhi)]

(Blending
of
the Name
and the one
chanting it).

15.
The centre for
chanting in the
subconscious
mind

Absent

Begins
to get
established

Is
established

(Blending
of
the Name
and the one
chanting it).

16. The
influence
of the centre for
chanting in
comparison to
other centres in
the subconsci-
ous mind.

--

Less

More

The
other
centres are
either insigni-
ficant or totally
destroyed.

17.
Other impres-
sions on the
subconscious
mind

Many

Less

Few

Very
few or
absent

18.
Other thoughts
in the mind
during chanting
(the number of
thoughts reduce
in proportion to
the development
of the centre for
chanting)

Many

Less

Absent

(Blending
of
the Name
and the one
chanting it).

19.
The
component

Tama

Raja

Sattva

Beyond
the
three compon-
ents
(trigunatit)

* A tool means
a particualar place, time, mala,
seat, bath, insense, Sadguru’s
photo, chanting loudly, company of seekers, silence, good health, no problems
in worldly life, etc.The
four modes of speech and time: The Vaikhari
mode of speech has the restrictions of the three dimensions of time (past,
present and future). Later, this gradually reduces and recitations of the Pashyanti become
unidimensional. Some evolved seekers in their usual state say that they
performed the Mahagayatri
purashcharan, (that is chanting 24 lakhs of the Gayatrimantra) in the morning. The
listener may find this odd and label them as eccentric. The reason for this
feeling, is that performing a purashcharan
which normally takes 6 months at the rate of ten hours per day, in just six
hours, is next to impossible. It is only natural that a seeker claiming to have
performed a mahapurashcharan
in 6 hours or in 6 minutes should be considered eccentric by an average person.
However the very concept that these seekers could perform such a purashcharan in the Pashyanti or Para modes [there is
non-duality (advait)
in the Para mode of
speech] is far beyond the imagination of the average individual. Of late, the
concept of dimensions such as three dimensional, two dimensional,
unidimensional and dimensionlessness are gradually unfolding before modern
science. One routinely experiences the miracle when the mind in the three
dimensional waking state enters the unidimensional dream state. For instance
when one dozes even for half a minute during a spiritual discourse (kirtan) one has a reverie
that one is being felicitated in a ceremony, by a crowd. These are common
phenomena experienced in hardly thirty seconds. Had these events occurred in
the waking state it would have taken a minimum of twelve hours or so. Such is
the achievement of Pashyanti.The more
progressed the state the less is the proportion of dimensions. The proportion
of dimensions of Lord Brahma, Vishnu and Mahadev is so infinitesimally reduced
that thousands of our yugs
(eras) elapse in a time which is equivalent to the blinking of Their eyelids.’(1)

3. Methods of
chanting - According to the types

The method ofchanting

Verbal

Upanshu

Mental

1.
Pronouncing

Loud
enough for
others to hear

Uttered
with slight
movement of the
tongue and lips so
that one is able to
hear it oneself

Absent.
Chanting
occurs in the
mind. The inner
vision and subtle
sense organs of
hearing are aware
of the words.

2.
Relation to
external air

Pronounciation
is made with the
help of external
air

Minimal

Absent

3.
Contribution
of the mind

Present.
There is
a difference
between the
word and its
meaning.

The
mind concen-
trates on the deity
of the mantra.
There is also an
attempt to
understand the
meaning.

There is
concen-
tration on the
meaning of themantra and there
is also a firm
relationship bet-
ween the word
and the meaning.
Later, one expe-
riences nonduality

* This mode (vani) is also used for a
majority of negative acts such as abhichar
(jaran, maran, etc.) According to
the quote, ‘उपांशुस्‍यात्‌शतगुण:।’ (from Manusmruti
2:86) with upanshu
chanting one acquires results a hundred times more than those obtained with
chanting in the verbal mode.The benefits from mental chanting are significantly
more than those obtained with upanshu,
as the more subtle the Name, the more is its effectiveness. The difference in
the energy generated from audible chanting (Vaikhari
or verbal) and that of inaudible sound will be understood from the following
example. The radiance generated from chanting in the audible mode for thirty
years will suffice to heat one glass of water upto its boiling point. As against
this, a mere thirty seconds of inaudible chanting gives the same results.